Some Doors Should Stay Closed
by ElunaX12
Summary: Investigations had never been Leon Kennedy's forte, and the town of Silent Hill provides him a challenge like no other. At the very least, he has a helper, of sorts. A helper who can't even leave his own apartment.
1. Contact

**Disclaimer: **I do not own either Resident Evil or Silent Hill, or any characters/places associated with them. This is fan-made, so no suing.

**Warnings: **None, as yet. Slash in future chapters; rated T for now, will change to M later.

I apologize in advance for any deviations from the character's personalities; I didn't mean for it to be that way, or if I did, it was out of my interpretation of the character given the situation. It would also help you very, _very _much if you have actually played/seen a walkthrough of/know the story of RE4 and SH4, as those are the two focuses of this fanfiction. If you haven't familiarized yourself with these stories already, they're quite good, and worth looking into(though why you'd be reading this in the first place if you didn't know...).

* * *

Leon's lungs were craving the sweet burn of tobacco, but the coffee shop prohibited smoking, and he couldn't be assed to drag himself off his stool and head outside, despite the fact that the packet was burning a whole through his breast pocket. Instead, he stared down into the abyss of a cup of black that had gone cold a half hour since, and he'd not yet taken a sip. Misery was difficult to hide under the purging honesty of a five o'clock morning, a time when those not tormented by their jobs or their own nightmares were busy only with slapping their snooze buttons and turning over for another fifteen minutes.

_You got a smoke?_

When Leon had first been asked this question, all he'd had was gum. Now, he carried at least two packs on his person at all times. It struck him as funny, when he was in the right mood, that he hadn't been a smoker before the incident in Spain. Before he'd met a particular Spaniard. That a dead man could still hold so much sway over his life by way of nicotine.

"Sir, are you going to drink that, or just sit and mope all day?"

Leon glanced up at the waitresses' voice, staring at the rotund woman dispassionately, eyes slowly sweeping over the rest of the café. It was a bit on the shabby side; it wasn't seedy, just in need of a bit of care and sprucing up. It might once have been a warm, festive place, in a bygone era when more than three people visited the establishment per day, but the Starbucks across the street was sucking up it's customers, loyalists and newcomers alike, and the family that ran it was probably doing so only through faith.

"Sir? Did you hear me?"

His eyes focused, narrowing at the slightly more insistent tone in the woman's calls. Of course he could hear-did she think him deaf and dumb?

"Yeah," was all he said, his eyes slowly being drawn back to the lukewarm cup sitting before him. He sensed the woman's irritation at being brushed off, imagined her purse her lips and get a slight bit of color flushed through her ample cheeks. Whatever cussing she felt like angling at him she must have decided against, as she moved away from the counter to the only other patron in the place: an artsy guy, sitting in a corner, sporting black shades and all. More than likely she was asking him the same thing, Leon thought wryly.

A low, metallic hum started up from the pocket of his jeans as his phone vibrated with the warning of an incoming call. With a sigh, he drew himself up from the counter, leaving a dollar for tip-not that the bitch deserved it-and meandered outside, pausing to lean against the old-time brick wall next to the door. He was in no hurry, taking his sweet time with lighting up a cigarette and putting it to his lips, taking in a long drag of the chemicals and exhaling, before he decided to answer.

"Leon?" It was Hunnigan, and Leon inwardly groaned. The agency only called him when there was an urgent mission, especially when it was this out-of-the-blue.

"That's my name." The woman on the other end didn't laugh. She never did, and it never failed to irk Leon.

"You've been assigned to a new task, in a town called Silent Hill." Leon's teeth clamped down on the filter in his mouth, just as his heart clenched.

"No," he said curtly.

"Afraid you haven't got a choice. Apparently there have been some disappearances there recently, and the local police can't make heads or tails of any of it. Seeing as you handled the case with the _Las Plagas _so well, and with there being such a drought of work for you…" Leon snorted in disgust; sure, they were the people who paid him and all, and kept him from living in a gutter, but did that seriously give them the right to move him to any old place?

"What about the President? His family? Who's going to protect Ashley while I'm gone?" It was a poor tactic for defense, Leon knew, but it was all he had.

"You don't need to worry about them." Hunnigan didn't sound irritated. In fact, Leon couldn't remember her ever sounding like much of… anything. She was only a messenger, after all. "They're vacationing in Madrid this month, under the protection of the Spanish government."

_I used to be a cop in Madrid…_

Leon forced himself to breath, forgetting that there was a cigarette in his mouth, and he nearly choked on the acrid smoke, holding the phone away and cursing softly to himself. He considered hanging up his phone entirely, but knew the futility of it, and so he put it back up to his ear. "Will I have a partner? The two that you sent with me on the last mission didn't last long…"

"Honestly, Leon; you survived a horde of infested Spaniards. A single serial killer isn't going to be that much of a problem for you, is it?"

Leon let out a groan of resignation. "When do I leave?"

"Tonight. Ten o'clock flight." Leon swore again, not even bothering to pull the phone away out of politeness, but Hunnigan ignored it, as usual. "I'll contact you later with the details, but for now, you'd better get packing." The line went dead before Leon could get another word in.

With a resolute sigh, the agent shut off his phone and stood straight, stamping out the still-smoldering cigarette that had fallen from his lips the moment he'd started hacking his guts out. The short smoke break had been enough to quell the ache of his lungs for the time being, but his heart remained just as pained as ever, and the talk with Hunnigan had only served to make it worse.

He stepped towards the curb to hail a taxi.

* * *

For whatever reason, Leon wasn't directly sent to Silent Hill. Instead, he was positioned in a neighboring town: South Ashfield. Why they didn't just puthim in Silent Hill to start with, he didn't have any idea. Apparently Silent Hill itself was a very nice vacationing spot, minus the seemingly random kidnappings, disappearances, and murders. Rumors and stories were plentiful in Ashfield, at least, so Leon had begun his investigation with interviewing some of the locals. So far, the most disturbing tale he'd heard of had involved a set of twins who'd been chopped to bits with an axe.

There was only one consistency that seemed to come up with each case: the name Walter Sullivan. Which perplexed Leon, as the man had reportedly killed himself while imprisoned on multiple charges of murder, well before the most recent killings.

"Do you know of anyone who would have more information on the man whose body was found in Toluca lake last year?" Currently, he was questioning a rather elderly lady, who, despite her age, had quite a sharp mind.

"Oh, sure. Frank Sunderland. The guy who drowned in the lake was his kid." She gestured vaguely across the street, to an average-looking apartment building. "He's the super at that complex over there."

"Thank you. Have a good day." He nodded his head politely to the woman, stepping out onto the crosswalk, staring at the building that waited before him. He didn't expect anything too spectacular when he pushed open the glass front doors, though he _was _pleasantly surprised by the fact that the interior was air conditioned.

"Welcome to South Ashfield Heights," a bored woman's voice droned from behind the receptionist's desk, just next to the pigeon holes that were filled with the resident's mail of the day. One of those cubbies looked especially cluttered, as if it's owner hadn't come by to empty it in a while. Leon took brief note of the number engraved on a plaque below it: _302._

"Is the superintendent here today?" Leon questioned, leaning on the counter of the desk. The woman looked him up and down, no doubt appreciating his attractive features-as most women did.

"You mean Mr. Sunderland?"

"Yes."

The woman tore her eyes away, picking up a well-worn phone, punching in numbers with red-painted, perfectly manicured nails. "Frank? Someone's here to see you. Looks like a cop." Inwardly, Leon was surprised by the fact that the woman hadn't _actually _been trying to check him out, but only determine what he was there for. She dropped the phone back onto the receiver, looking back up to him and waving a hand dismissively. "He'll be here in a minute. In the meantime, have a look around the lobby, or whatever."

With a shrug, Leon stepped back from the counter, peering around at the sparsely furnished main entry. There really wasn't much; a chess table and two mismatching chairs in one corner, a drab sofa pushed up against one wall. The only things that really caught his attention were the small collection of photographs that lined the walls. He stepped up to examine one, a simple snapshot of the fountain in the center of the park across the street, yet it somehow seemed _above _an average man's photograph. The lighting seemed to put the timeframe around sunset, and the photographer had taken care to find the perfect angle to document the faint, orange glow that the setting sun played across the water. It had definitely been done by someone with a knack for finding beauty in the mundane.

"Nice pictures, aren't they?" a voice said from behind Leon, and he turned to look at the owner, a middle-aged man of average bearing. "Too bad the guy who did them locked himself in his room almost a week ago."

"Are you the superintendent?" Leon questioned, only belatedly realizing the oddness of the man's last statement.

"Yep. Name's Frank Sunderland; how can I help?"

"I came to ask a few questions about the drowned victim who was found in the lake a few years back." Leon almost immediately regretted asking the question, as he saw the elder man's eyes become incredibly sad. "Did you have any relation?"

Frank let out a tired sigh. "Yes. He was my son."

"What can you tell me about him?"

"He was a good kid." By his tone, Leon could only guess that Frank had been asked this sort of question a number of times, and he was getting bored with it. "Decent job, good marriage… but something changed in him when his wife fell ill and died. Went to Silent Hill for what I assumed to be a break from the world, and left the town in a soaked body bag. Police thought it was a suicide, out of grief for his wife."

Leon nodded, trying to put a bit of sympathy into his tone. "I'm sorry for your loss, Mr. Sunderland. Which lake was he found in, again?"

"Toluca. It's not far away; just on the other side of the woods outside town. You can see Silent Hill from our side of the lake on a clear day, when the fog's-" Frank stopped, turning to answer the call from a rather flustered woman coming down the stairs towards him.

"Frank! I'm telling you, I _hear _something from that room!" She stopped before the super, frowning darkly at him, Leon apparently not being noticed. Her dark hair was mussed, and her green eyes were angry, with the smallest hint of fear.

Frank sighed, having no doubt heard this complaint before. "Alright, Eileen; alright. I'll come see. It's still 302, right?" Leon's interest perked, remembering the cluttered mail drop across the lobby and Frank's odd mention of a man who'd locked himself in his room from earlier. He decided to pipe up.

"Would it be alright if I came along, too? It might be a connection in my investigations of the recent misfortunes that have been happening around here."

Frank peered at him for a moment, and Eileen seemed to force herself into a more sober mood at the realization that there was someone else with them. Finally, the super shrugged, saying only, "Fine."

The room was just where the number suggested: third floor, second from the stairwell. The door was fairly ordinary; there was nothing to even suggest that the man who lived within had suddenly become eccentrically introverted, and had chosen to live his life in solitude. Nothing, except for the fact that Frank's all-purpose key wasn't turning in the lock, and, more disturbingly, the rows of red handprints that covered the wall opposite, sixteen in all. When asked what they were, Frank only shrugged, lamely excusing it by saying that it was probably just some prankster kid living in the building. No amount of cleaning had ever managed to remove them, or so the superintendent said.

"Well, door's still locked, but that's no surprise," the old man grumbled, jiggling the key free of the door. "Unless the policeman here wants to try breaking it down, I don't think we'll be getting that door opened for a while, unless Henry decides to open up."

Leon blinked, staring at Frank. "If you want me to, I could." At Frank's elbow, Eileen nodded quickly. Whatever she'd heard from that room must have truly disturbed her, if her eagerness to get the door open was any suggestion. The super shrugged, stepping back and motioning towards the door.

Bracing himself, Leon stepped back, then threw himself at the door, and was surprised when it didn't so much as groan, and sorely regretted having tried to break it down, as his shoulder was now rather sore. Really, the door didn't look as thought it ought to be as tough as it was, and yet…

"I think he may have braced it on the other side with something," Leon said, feeling a bit embarrassed as he turned back to Frank and Eileen, rubbing at his shoulder. "Who's the guy that lives here, anyway?"

"This room? Henry Townsend, if I remember correctly." Frank adopted a thoughtful expression, rubbing idly at his chin. "Simple kind of guy. In his twenties. Didn't talk to people much, but he was friendly, so far as I can recollect. Never thought he'd go and do _this_…" A frown touched his face, and he shook his head. "Don't you have some investigating to do, cop?"

Leon nodded, a bit soberly. "Yeah, I guess I do. Thanks for your time, and-I'm sorry about your son." Frank only grunted in response, and Leon turned, trotting down the stairwell and out of the apartment. He decided to pursue his only lead: Toluca lake, so that was where he headed.

* * *

**A/N:** This originally started as a hinted-at LeonxLuis oneshot, as you can see in the first scene, but the idea of Leon going off to Silent Hill intrigued me, and rather than starting fresh, I decided to just build from the scene I already had in place. I must say that I'm rather proud of myself for not succumbing to the wish to make Leon's motivation one of those "I have sinned/someone I love has died, I must repent in an evil town. :"-type things. Not that the alternative I came up with is any better, but, eh.

Read, review, construct your criticism, all that jazz.


	2. Into A Trap

Betcha guys never thought you'd see THIS, eh? Surprise surprise, and happy St. Patrick's day, I suppose. I've actually had this written from before I uploaded the first chapter, and thus my supreme laziness in not even bothering to upload it is confirmed.

Anyway, enjoy if you're still following it.

**Disclaimer: **The usual. Don't own it, don't sue me.

**Warnings: **Still none as yet.

* * *

The woods around Silent Hill were just that: silent. Yet Leon couldn't help feeling a sense of creeping dread as he drove his rented jalopy through the mess of trees lining an ill-kept road. The gearbox shrieked at him when he tried to shift to third, and the agent swore as he considered, not for the first time, whether or not lighting the derelict vehicle ablaze was a bad idea. Running it into a tree also wasn't half bad; the way he saw it, it'd be more like he was putting the old Pinto out of its misery.

Not only did his ride refuse to shift above second, the headlights were also near to death-a fact Leon had learned, and was _still _learning the hard way, as he carefully navigated through the woods in the dark. Leon couldn't say for sure when it had suddenly become night, as he was sure he'd left in the middle of the day, and Toluca lake lay less than a half hour's drive from Ashfield. Yet here he was, trying to keep his rattler of a car on a barely-visible-even-by-daylight dirt road in the dark, while also trying to keep an eye out for anything that may have looked suspicious.

As it turned out, he needn't have looked _that _hard, as his need for 'anything suspicious' was shortly filled by the sight of a small, mustard-colored car sitting at the front of a chain-link gate. Leon felt a strong twinge of jealousy when he pulled over to it and stalled his car to a stop-as the key failed to turn backwards-at the realization that the yellow vehicle actually had working headlights. It was only after he'd gotten out and begun to inspect the car that he came to realize it was still on and running, the brake pedal stuck down, and the driver nowhere to be seen.

Still, someone had been there recently, as Leon could tell from the footprints that led up to the driver's door and away, towards the chain link gate. Squinting, the agent shined his flashlight into the dark beyond the fence, seeing only a continuation of the forest. After checking the gate and finding it unlocked, he stepped through, briefly considering what fate his car might have if he left it out there. Then he growled to himself, knowing damn well that even the most desperate car thief would probably pass on the hunk of junk he'd been rented.

"Hello?" he called into the dark, though he doubted he'd be getting a response, even if the owner of the car was nearby. He decided to follow a fairly well-worn path between the trees, keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of either a person or the lake he'd originally come out here to investigate. The feeling of dread returned, and as his scalp prickled he turned, only for his flashlight to be met with the sight of a particularly menacing… _tree_.

Uttering another oath, Leon tried to set aside the nausea setting into his guts, and also to ignore a headache that was beginning to pulse and prod at his temples. As he progressed through the woods, however, his stomach only dropped further, and his head began to pound harder. Yet his intrigue forced him to press on, despite the pain, if only to satisfy his growing curiosity about just what was happening in this town. Rather suddenly, an intense ringing barged into his hearing, and he winced, forced to his knees by the sudden spike in pain, his flashlight rolling away when he dropped it, forgotten under the onslaught. The white noise only intensified, and he clutched at his head, groaning with the effort it took to remain lucid.

In the end, the fight for consciousness was too much for the agent, and Leon found himself sprawled on the forest floor, succumbing to the blackness that was so welcoming in face of the headache that had come upon him.

* * *

"_Temptation is complete, and soon Source will join her…" A voice, on the edge of Leon's mind. "But who is this? This is not the mind of a Sacrament…"_

"_The Receiver is the last. This is but a bystander." A second voice, whispering with the first. "He should be eliminated."_

_A third, lower voice joined the others, chuckling softly. "Let him go free, for now. The Receiver… will no doubt enjoy the company."_

* * *

Awareness returned slowly, and with markedly less pain than leaving it behind. Leon was surprised with the fact that his headache was gone, but he took care with rousing himself, sitting up slowly, and blinking into the mild fog that had formed in the time he had been passed out. How long had it been? He reached in search of his flashlight, clicking it on and off when his hand found it, grumbling to himself; the batteries had apparently gone dead.

Standing, he took a glance around, not seeing anything to tell him that he'd been moved in the time since he'd been collapsed on the ground. Summoning up his clearest recollection, he turned in the direction that he guessed he'd come from, starting off that way. Despite his certainty, however, he found himself wandering for what felt like hours, meeting no chain link fence, nor hearing the sound of the still-running car that had first led him to investigate the area. Worse still, the temperature was beginning to drop, and a thick fog was starting to set in around him. Leon huddled into his jacket to no relief, jumping when a sudden noise off to his right caught him off-guard. It sounded like… _growling_. It was shortly followed by a far more disturbing sound: that of metal hitting flesh and crunching bone.

Readying his ever-at-hand handgun, he advanced slowly towards a small bunch of bushes and tree branches that obscured his view, from behind which he assumed the sound had come. Preparing himself, he charged through the mess of plant life, gun raised and finger ready to pull the trigger. He nearly did, at the sight he was met with: that of a man, lead pipe in hand, standing over what appeared to be a dog, and he was… crunching its head in two with his foot.

Leon was understandably unnerved, even more so when the man jerked 'round to _him_, raising his weapon threateningly, the pipe still dripping blood from the unfortunate canine that lay dead at his feet. It was only a sudden realization that kept Leon from putting a bullet between the man's eyes: the man was shaking. Not with rage, or psychosis, but with fear. A deep, primal fear that was etched into every one of his features; it only ebbed away when he must have realized Leon wasn't some creature out to remove his throat.

"Who are you?" Leon was surprised by the question, and also by the lank tone with which it was spoken. Like the man _hadn't _just crushed in the skull of a dog, after presumably wailing on it with that pipe he was still holding. The only explanation the agent could come up with was 'shock', but the man's green eyes seemed clear enough. At least, Leon assumed they were; it was difficult to see under the man's mop of brown hair.

Taking out his badge, Leon held it up to the pipe-wielding stranger, saying slowly, "Leon Kennedy. I'm here to investigate the murders and disappearances that have been happening around Silent Hill. And you?"

"Henry." Again, spoken with a mild voice, and the man-Henry-lowered his weapon entirely, watching Leon quietly. "You're not from around here?"

Leon shook his head. "No. Are you the owner of a yellow vehicle, parked but still running near here?" The dead dog nearby was becoming difficult for Leon to ignore, but he did his best, figuring it was better to question after this man than worry about someone's dead pet.

Henry's eyed widened slightly, but he shook his head. "You saw it, too? I found this in the driver's seat-do you know what it means?" He reached into the back pocket of a pair of well-worn blue jeans, pulling out a small notebook of sorts, with a sheaf of papers neatly folded and organized within it. After filing through some of the pages, he took out what looked to be a page out of a memo pad:

_I'm not sure what that nosy guy meant when he said: _

_"His home is the orphanage in the middle. _

_The lake is southwest. So the opposite is northeast." _

_That nosy guy said one other thing I don't understand:_

_ "If you bring the dug-up key, you can't go back. Put it away somewhere before you return there."_

Leon frowned, utterly baffled by the note as he handed it back. "Sorry, it's just gibberish to me. Do you know who owns the car, at least?"

Again, Henry shook his head. "No, but there was another note in the car that I didn't take. It was finished with _Jasper Gein_, so I can only assume that he's the owner, whoever he is."

Nodding, Leon accepted this logic, though he had no clue who Jasper Gein could be. No one in town had ever mentioned the name, nor anyone who might have been considered 'nosy'. "I'm sorry, what was your name again?"

"Henry," he clarified, not seeming to take offense to the fact that Leon had missed it earlier. "Henry Townsend."

It took a moment for the information to click, and Leon inwardly cursed himself for missing something so obvious. "Townsend? From room 302 at South Ashfield Heights?" It was hard to believe that this man could be the extreme introvert who'd locked himself up in his room for the last five days. After all, wasn't he supposed to be _in his room_? From Henry's change in expression, Leon could tell that his assumption was correct "But how…?"

"It… it's difficult…" Henry frowned, suddenly appearing to be somewhat… awkward. Perhaps he was an introvert after all, just not to the point that everyone in his building suspected. Perhaps he'd just taken a vacation, and forgotten to tell-? No. No one went on vacations that involved smashing in the heads of innocent animals, in the middle of creepy forests. "There was this hole in my bathroom that showed up five days after the chains, and…"

"_Chains_?"

"Y… yeah. On my front door. Couldn't get out." He seemed to be having some difficulty explaining his story; as if it was too much to put into words. Leon didn't even know if he ought to be trusting a single word this man said, though he did seem to be genuine and innocent enough. "The first time I went through the hole, I was in a subway, though. And there was this…" he took pause, no doubt trying to find a particular word, "… woman, and I offered to help her get out of the station, but she…" Henry stopped altogether, putting a hand over his mouth, visibly shaken by whatever it was he had seen.

Trying to find a way to distract him, should Henry get too tightly caught by fear once again, Leon went on with the questioning, "So how did you get _here_, in the woods, from the subway?"

Henry took a breath, seeming to regain his composure, and his expression returned to what appear to be a blank state. Leon wished he could control himself half as well. "The same way. Through a hole in my bathroom wall." He blinked, a thought seeming to occur to him. "I could show you this world's end of it. The hole, that is; if you want to."

Though Leon had a few misgivings about entering a hole that supposedly led into a stranger's apartment, he was intrigued, and he damned himself for it. His interest was difficult to silence when it had become this piqued, and, besides, it could only help in his investigation. What was happening to Henry-or supposedly happening to him-was strange and unusual, was it not? It certainly fell under something that 'needed further inquiry'. The dog was beginning to smell, anyway. "Show me."

The following walk was rather uneventful, though Henry kept a good hold on his pipe throughout the journey. At one point, Leon had pulled out a cigarette, offering one to Henry, who had politely and quietly declined with a shake of the head. Leon had only shrugged and proceeded to light up, figuring that Henry would voice his complaints, if he had any to begin with, about his suicidal habit. He snuffed it out with the heel of his boot when they came upon what Henry had wanted to show him: a hole in the wall of a rather industrial-looking building.

Leon didn't even know where to _begin _with his mental questions, though his main concerns were _Why is there a _factory _in the middle of a forest? _and _Why is there a hole in said building?_ The hole itself was rather odd: perfectly circular, a little wider than would be needed for a man to comfortably fit, with a rimming of red markings, which sharply defined it against the plain grey of the concrete wall. When he tried to peer into the depths of it, he found himself unable, afraid to be lost to the unfathomable darkness that greeted his eyes. He couldn't imagine anyone willingly going into something like what was before him…

"This is it," Henry stated unnecessarily. He stepped toward the hole, glancing back towards Leon. "D… do you want to go in, or…?" As if he could sense Leon's insecurities. Yes, the episode with the _Las Plagas_ had solidified the agent's courage to an astounding degree, and there were few tasks in the world now that gave him pause, but staring into that void of blackness most definitely sent a shudder down the his spine, a feeling he had nearly forgotten.

Still, he knew what he had to do, so he swallowed his doubt and did his best to forget about it. "I do. I'm curious to see if this really does end up back in your apartment."

Nodding, Henry threw his pipe in ahead of him, before following it along, crawling away into the darkness. It took Leon a few moments more than Henry to summon up the stomach to do the same, but he made himself do so, using his elbows and knees to drag himself into the black. Of a sudden, all he could _see _was black, and he had just a moment's notice to berate himself about this being a bad idea, before he lost consciousness for the second time that day.

* * *

There we go; another piece of the story for you guys to gobble up and hunger for more over. Hopefully I'll force my brain to spit up what the plot I was aiming for was... preferably before another year goes by, eh?


	3. Looser Ends

Holy cow guys. It didn't take me over a year to post this? And I didn't even have it pre-written? This must be a miracle! Or at least a personal record.

(Don't get _too_ excited about it, though).

**Disclaimer:** If I owned either of these, Eileen would have died and Luis would still be alive. LUUUIIIIIISSSS!

**Warnings: **Content-wise? Nope. Might be some typos though. Entire last half was written in the last half hour. Derp.

* * *

_Tunnels…_

_Holes…_

_Traversing…_

_Portals…_

_They were __Portals__…_

Leon came back to reality with a start, the memories of his dream-of careening through a twisting, winding tunnel of stone-fresh in his mind. Awareness of his surroundings came to him in a shock: he was sprawled on a plain, cream-colored couch, the room around him suited to match it: plain, though rather more grey than creamy. He jolted up, heart racing, as he realized that Henry had been telling the truth. _The truth_. He wasn't quite sure if he ought to be exhilarated or chilled by the fact, so instead, he distracted himself by poking around the apartment and doing what he'd been sent to Silent Hill to do in the first place: investigation.

At first, he found that his original assumption of the apartment being devoid of anything interesting to be a perfect summarization, but for one detail that nearly made his heart stop: the front door. Henry hadn't lied about _that_, either. Chains were laced across it, at least five of them, each padlocked to the wall on either side of the wooden barrier. It was no wonder he hadn't been able to break it in earlier that day. More disturbing was the message scrawled just below the peephole, appearing to be written in blood:

_Don't go out!_

_-Walter_

Leon's skin crawled, and he turned away from the wretched door, suddenly needing to find Henry and pepper him with questions yet again. Surely the apartment couldn't be that big; there were only three other doors. A quick look into one of them revealed a washer and dryer, but no Henry. The second was the bathroom, with a ragged hole in one wall across from the shower, which Leon didn't feel like looking in to at current. At any rate, the man he sought wasn't in there. He turned to door number three, just across from the bathroom, and clicked it open. Henry's bedroom. _Bingo._

The agent found the brunette laid out across a bed made up with dull, blue sheets. He appeared to be completely out, at least, he didn't respond when Leon called his name. It took a physical shaking to get the man to stir, and he did so only grudgingly, sitting up with a mild groan and pinching at the bridge of his nose, as if he were suffering from a headache. Not that Leon had any sympathy for him just then. "Mind telling me about Walter?"

Henry stared at him with a look of genuine confusion before his memory and senses returned to him. "Oh. The door." Pressing two fingers to his temples, Henry stood with some effort. "Walter… Sullivan." He blinked, eyes still bleary as they looked upon Leon. "The serial killer."

Leon wasn't sure how many more surprises he could take in a single day. His first reaction was outright disbelief and rejection; it was only natural. "He's supposed to be dead. Everyone in Ashfield said so."

"_Supposed _to be isn't the same as _is_." Spoken so bluntly, like just about everything Henry said. So honest. "I can't think of anyone else who'd kill random women in subways, and then carve numbers into them." Henry winced then and turned away, stopping any further inquiry into such a bizarre statement as Leon might have had.

Leon headed over to the nearby window, peering out into the street below. The one he had been standing on not so long ago, or at least, he guessed it hadn't been all that long.  
"Then why don't you just leave?" Leon turned away from the window, only to be met with Henry's confused expression. "Surely you have the keys to the chains over your door…?" he asked hopefully, stomach dropping when Henry shook his head. Realization dawned on him; this man wasn't here by choice, an eccentric who wanted to get away from the world. Henry was trapped. Don't go out! -Walter.

And now Leon was trapped, too.

"How in the _hell _did you manage to get imprisoned in your own apartment by a serial killer who was supposed to be dead ten years ago?" Leon, in his frustration, didn't care if his words seemed 'insensitive'. Henry didn't seem particularly offended either way, though Leon doubted the man could show anything other than fear, or a mask of passive indifference. "How long have you been in here?"

"Five days." The answer was spoken after a long pause, as though Henry was beginning to lose track of the time. Hell, Leon was amazed the man hadn't lost his very _sanity _after five days of being locked in a room.

After an uncomfortable beat of silence, Leon turned back toward the window, observing the people outside as they went about their business. "How could you stand this? Sitting here, watching the world go on outside, neither caring nor knowing about you and what you're going through…"

"I'm used to it, I guess." Though what that could mean, the agent couldn't be sure. "The hole was a curse as much as a blessing, when it came. Just showed up in my wall, like it'd always been there."

"Yeah, I saw it." A frown tugged the corners of Leon's mouth downward. "It'll take us back to the woods if we go through it from this side?"

"I think so, yes. But I'm not yet sure of the rules."

His head pains seeming to have subsided, Henry headed out into the main room of his apartment, Leon trailing along behind. He knelt, opening the top of a storage box located next to the television in the living room, sorting through the contents inside: a few keys, coins, loose papers, and bottles of what appeared to be vegetable drinks, though Leon couldn't be sure. Finally, Henry drew out a first aid kit, from which he retrieved a small bottle of Tylenol. He took two of them, glancing towards Leon.

"Want any?"

"No, thanks." Leon's headache had left him a while ago, and he hadn't had one upon waking up on the couch. As Henry was packing things back into his box, a glint of metal caught his eye. "You have a pistol, and you're still carrying around just a rusty pipe?"

"I don't have very many bullets, and I'm a terrible shot anyway. A lead pipe kills the nightmares just the same."

"I'll take them, then. The bullets _and _the gun. I was trained as a cop." Leon patted the gun at his hip, to emphasize his point. Henry stared at him in that unnervingly quiet manner of his.

"Were you trying to break down my door earlier today?" He said this as he reached back into his storage box, gathering up all the packs of bullets, along with the weapon they were fit for.

"Uh… yeah." Leon was a bit surprised at the abrupt questioning, taking the bullets and pistol, going about the business of finding a pocket for them in his coat. "A woman, Eileen, says she's been hearing things from your apartment."

"I know." Henry dropped the lid closed and stood. "I heard all three of you. I tend to watch through the peephole whenever I hear anything outside my door. Not that any of _them _can hear _me_."

"You were _watching _us?" Leon frowned, unsure as to why this disturbed him so. It wasn't as though they had been subtle about the whole thing, after all.

"Yeah. Through the peephole." Henry nodded his head towards the door as he stood, shutting the storage chest with a clatter of wood. He looked to a wall to the right, which looked as though someone had tried to hammer their way through it, and had failed, though not without doing a good bit of damage. "When this first started, I tried smashing the wall down to escape through the next room. I managed to make a hole to look through, but…" His cheeks flushed, as though he was suddenly embarrassed. "…I try not to look into that one very much. Eileen's room is on the other side."

Curious, Leon stepped over and knelt to examine the hole in the wall, though he was only met with the sight of the corner of a well-made bed, as well as what looked to be a stuffed toy, probably a rabbit. Thankfully, the woman who supposedly lived there was nowhere to be seen.

He tried the peephole next, seeing the hallway he had been in earlier that day-or was it yesterday, now?-as well as the handprints on the opposite wall, which somehow seemed far more ominous when viewed from the opposite side of this well-secured door. "Do you know what's up with those prints on the wall?" Leon turned to look at Henry, questioning.

To Leon's dismay, Henry could only shrug. "No; they appeared there along with the chains, and they haven't changed. Except…" He paused, wincing slightly, as though he were remembering something especially tragic. "…except when the woman I met in the subway died. When I came back, there was another handprint. Before, there had only been fifteen."

"The woman you met _died_?" Leon asked, incredulous. At least he could understand why Henry had had so much trouble discussing it before. "What was her name? Did you know her previously?" Already he had snapped back into detective mode, wishing he had a notepad and pencil.

"She told me her name was Cynthia, and no, I didn't know her previously. She was a… ah…" He blushed, looking suddenly bashful, not quite the face that Leon would expect from a man who had no problem cleaving in the head of a mutant dog. "…I believe she was a whore, or at least she acted very much like one when she approached me. Spanish origin, from her accent. She thought that everything that had happened was just a dream." Henry looked at his hands, sighing. "For all I know, she might be right. This may all just be a dream… maybe _I'm _the one who's dead…"

"Hey, now. Keep it together for me." Henry looked up, his eyes reminding Leon very much of a doe, or perhaps a puppy. "You don't recall anything else about the incident, or about this Cynthia?"

"There was one thing. When I found her, she was covered in blood, and there were… numbers carved on her. 16121."

Leon frowned, thoughtful as he pondered over the information he'd just been given. "I don't suppose it might have something to do with the string of murders that happened years ago in this area, where the killer was also carving numbers into his victims?"

Henry shrugged, helpless. "I wouldn't know. I wasn't living around here when they happened; I only moved in here a couple years ago. By then, the serial killer from _those_ incidents had supposedly already killed himself in prison."

"Hmm… it might be a copycat. If those murders are even occurring in the real world at all."

"They are. Or, at least, the results of them are. I saw an ambulance parked outside the subway station outside my room a couple days ago, when I returned to the apartment after she died. It was also on the radio." This made Leon perk up.

"You have a radio?" For an answer, Henry gestured to the bookcase sitting in one corner of the room, with a little radio set on one of the shelves. Flicking it on, Leon was met with nothing but the disappointing crackle of static and white noise. Discouraged, he flicked it off once again.

"Only sometimes when I turn it on is there anything actually going. Sorry to get your hopes up over it," Henry said, sheepishly.

Sighing with frustration as his mind fumbled with the details, the faces, the incidents he was learning of, Leon finally turned back to look at Henry, cocking his head to one side in a look of curiousness. "Well? What do we do now, then?"

Henry shrugged. "Back through the hole, I guess. Unless the rules have changed again, it should deposit us back in front of the one we came here through. In the woods."

Leon nodded. "Alright. Let's get to it, then."

* * *

Abrupt ending is abrupt, but I tend to prefer those than getting bogged down in needless descriptions and details and OH MY GOD GUYS THEY WENT THROUGH THE PORTAL AGAIN HAPPY?

Also, sorry for having to take this chapter down and put it back up twice. The first time was a formatting error, the second time was me going back to reread it and realizing that they had short-term memory loss. Such is what happens when you try to write the last half of a story over a year after you wrote the first and didn't even bother to reread it... le sigh.

If anymore inconsistencies are found, please leave it up in the reviews, so I can get them patched up.


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